Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

In 1913, springtime meant the reopening of the region’s vast logging industry.

About 400 mills were scheduled to reopen in the next few weeks, putting between 20,000 and 30,000 sawyers and lumberjacks back to work. Some of the biggest mills were in Sandpoint, St. Maries, Elk, Bonners Ferry, Newport and the St. Joe River country.

A few mills had stayed open all winter, including the Phoenix Mill in Spokane and Potlatch Mill in Idaho. Yet because of a particularly snowy winter, most mills had been idle for months.

From the fleece beat: Rene De Bear, a young French Canadian man, told the court that he had been doped and fleeced by two women he met in White’s Cafe.

He said he was drinking beer with them when he began to feel dizzy. All he remembered after that is that they took him to their room at a hotel. When he woke up, they were gone and so was the roll of cash in his shoe.

One of the women vehemently denied these charges, but the other testified that the other woman “threw herself onto” the stupefied man, and “pinioned him to the bed while I grabbed the roll of bills.”

Also on this date

(from the Associated Press)

1912: The Girl Scouts of the USA had its beginnings as Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Ga., founded the first American troop of the Girl Guides.